Alright brethren, please turn with me in your Bibles to Romans and chapter 16. As you do so, let me again emphasize something that Elder Botha mentioned a few moments ago as he was praying, and that's to do with the Evergreen Book Ministry. I got information we've been waiting now for about a month and maybe a little more for the next container of books to arrive. And I just heard from our brother Francis Kaunda that it may be at one of the ports and consequently undergoing the processing of coming into the country. So please remember that it's part of our efforts to relaunch the bookstore. and also the free distribution of literature. The book ministry is also undergoing training this week through the Christian book discounters who have been running one of South Africa's major Christian bookshops. and so through zoom we will have two evenings of training again please remember the team in prayer we want to make sure that this time when the bookstore kicks off as it is relaunched that indeed it will not be and then fall down the other side but will keep blessing the nation of Zambia and even beyond. So I just thought I should emphasize those two aspects apart from the 500 plus books that Mr. Botha also mentioned that are currently on their way from South Africa. Romans chapter 16, really I ought to read verse 5 to verse 16. Let me read it now, but it's a whole lot of names, and so if you have a system overload, I shouldn't blame you too much. When we now begin to go through, it will be a little easier for you to appreciate what's going on there. Let me just begin with verse 3, which is also a greeting. We saw this last week. Greet Prisca and Aquila, my fellow workers in Christ Jesus. who risked their necks for my life, to whom not only I give thanks, but all the churches of the Gentiles give thanks as well. Greet also the church in their house. Greet my beloved Apenniatus, who was the first convert to Christ in Asia. Greet Mary, who has worked hard for you. Greet Adronicus and Junia, my kinsmen and my fellow prisoners. They are well known to the Gentiles, rather to the Apostles, and they were in Christ before me. Greet Ampliatus, my beloved in the Lord. Greet Abanas, our fellow worker in Christ, and my beloved Stachys. Greet Apelles, who is approved in Christ. Greet those who belong to the family of Aristobulus. Greet my kinsman Herodian. Greet those in the Lord who belong to the family of Naxos. Greet those workers in the Lord, Trifina and Trifosa. Greet the beloved Persis, who has worked hard in the Lord. Greet Raphus, chosen in the Lord, also his mother, who has been a mother to me as well. Greet Asencritus, Phlegon, Hermes, Patrobas, Hermas, and the brothers who are with them. Greet Philologus, Julia, Nereus, and his sister, and Olympas, and all the saints who are with them. Greet one another with a holy kiss, All the churches of Christ greet you. As I said to you last time, these are but greetings. And it's fairly easy for us, the temptation is huge for us to try and throw all that into the background and quickly rush to 1 Corinthians chapter 1 because these appear to be merely greetings. But as I have said to you before, and I really want to say it again, the Lord deliberately helps us in this respect so that we might have a feel of how the New Testament church really was like in those days, and that we may then also ask ourselves, are we like that today? Because it's fairly easy for us to judge ourselves by ourselves based on the fact that we are simply learning the doctrines that are there in the scriptures. But it's when we now have a peep into New Testament life, that we begin to see how far short we may be falling of real New Testament Christianity. Last time we looked at this couple, Priscilla and Aquila. Basically I was urging us that we should not fall into this constant trap where, when we are still bachelors and spinsters, we are on fire for the Lord Jesus Christ. The moment we marry or get married, it is as though we have gone on to some kind of spiritual retirement and are no longer deliberately, intentionally active in saving the Lord. And we're still definitely not together. I mentioned that one of the reasons why this is often the case is because we spend so much of our energy bickering inside the marriage itself that we have very little energy left to actually reach out and be as fruitful as Priscilla and Aquila. One aspect that I didn't mention last time, which is also one that robs us of energy, is the tendency to be competing with other couples. So if our friends are already building, let's also start building. If our friends have managed to acquire one or two of the latest cars, let's also quickly get one or two of the latest cars. And because our energies are being spent in this invisible competition. We are actually competing in the area where get destroyed, where moth and rust destroy, instead of some healthy spiritual competition in terms of using our homes, for instance, for Christian hospitality, deliberately as couples seeking to minister to young people that are coming into our midst and so on. We lose out on all that. Because we are busy competing with one another, especially as professionals. Because it's just the air in which we are often breathing. Because when we meet, we're talking in terms of what we have now acquired, what our new plans are, and so on. And it's rarely ever to do with that which will count when we get to heaven. Well, that's what we did last time. Now, as I had promised you, that the way I was planning to handle Romans chapter 16, verse 1 to verse 16, was first of all to look at Phoebe, the lady who was a servant or a deacon, whichever word your version uses, of the church in Sancreia. And then secondly, we went on to look at these two, Priscilla and Aquila. And then I said thirdly, we were going to simply go through these greetings, the rest of these greetings that we find from verse 5 to verse 16. Now the very fact that there are approximately 18 greetings in this passage of Scripture must immediately say to us we shouldn't just bypass this. There must be a reason. God could not have spent so much inspiration in so many verses only to be skipped. Surely there must be a reason why it is there and a reason why it is in this most extraordinary book in the whole of the Bible, the book of Romans. And I want us to begin by simply asking the question, what is a greeting? I mean, we have so many greetings here, as I said, about 18 of them. What does a greeting mean? A greeting normally has two sides to it, and both of them are generally important. The first is that it is a formal expression of recognition. In other words, you greet somebody because you want them to know that you recognize their presence where you are. But secondly, it expresses goodwill to the individual or to the individuals being greeted. So the two go together. One, you are recognizing the person's presence, and the other is you are wishing them goodwill. And therefore, it's a normal thing that when you are in the presence of anybody, you greet them, and that's acknowledging their presence. But also, the very words that we use suggest that we wish them well. In the Old Testament days, the phrase was normally this phrase, shalom, which basically meant the peace of God be with you." In the New Testament it was again simply that same phrase, peace, and it is now peace be with you. It was a regular form of greeting. And then with the New Testament epistles coming through, it then was opened up a lot more. It was not just peace being with you, but God's grace also being with you, and so on and so forth. So it was grace and love and peace, but ultimately it is goodwill. being with you. And even when we come all the way into our modern days, I remember Mr. Botha came here and said, you know, good afternoon or good evening. And again, it's the very phrase good is meant to be conveying that wish. So when you greet somebody in the morning and you say good morning or afternoon, good afternoon, or in the evening, good evening, you are wishing them a good morning, a good afternoon, and a good evening. So you're not only acknowledging their presence, you are wishing them well. That's what a greeting was all about. And because we are by nature social creatures, that's the way God has wired us. We can't run away from that. Because we are social creatures, it means a lot to us. When somebody acknowledges your presence, when somebody thinks warmly towards you and wishes you well, it sends something to you that just makes you feel that you are in a wholesome relationship. Just to think that he recognizes me. To think that he thinks warmly of me, it means a lot. So for instance, there was a lady who was telling me not too long ago, I think it must have been earlier this year, that she was in a bad relationship with her husband for a while in the home. So they're not talking to each other for about two to three days, which is not unusual in marriages. But she said that the way the husband broke the ice was one evening he came back from work and just said, Pastor Mbewe is greeting you. Now, they aren't members of this church. And she was telling me that he knew exactly how to get me out of that closed corner. Because I immediately said, what? Where did you meet him? What exactly did he say? And so on. Now, obviously, it was simply the thought that, OK, this guy I'm not talking to met someone that I really highly respect and cherish. And that that person, here's the point, thought about me. we hadn't met for about six years. So obviously, there was just, eh? What was this all about? On the opposite end, the absence of greetings at the least shows a lack of goodwill, at the least. Or it shows actual enmity, actual enmity. So one of the ways in which you know that you've offended somebody is simply the fact that they see you and then they just continue. You know that things are not well here. Or, husband and wife, you wake up in the morning, the normal thing is what? Good morning. And if your spouse wakes up, and they just look at you, and then they go to brush their teeth, you know that there is a lack of goodwill here. And then, as I said, it can sometimes be actual enmity, that the person hates you with their guts. And consequently, the last thing they want to do for you is to greet you. So in a way, greeting, especially as we are now applying it to the Christian context, it gives us a sense of belonging to one another. It gives us a sense that we are family. It gives us a sense of koinonia, fellowship with one another. And so at the end of this passage of Scripture, for instance, verse 16, the Apostle Paul says, greet one another with a holy kiss. All the churches of Christ greet you. Now obviously he is suggesting there that within the context of the church there ought to be this expression of acknowledgement of one another and goodwill towards each other because you are a family in this context as a Christian church. But beyond that, it is also simply the fact that all the other churches have a relationship with you and so they acknowledge that you exist as a Christian church in Rome. They send you greetings as well and they have warmth fraternal warmth towards you. You belong. And you just have this great sense of we belong to one another. So that's really the atmosphere behind the text that we are looking at together this afternoon. Now, due to the space that has been given to these greetings, We want to spend a bit of time to simply pick out some of the salient features, because this is not a kind of template that the Apostle Paul has on his computer. And all he's doing is, when he's now sending to whoever he's sending, all he does is fit in new names and then send it off. This is real. It's a very real expression of how the Apostle Paul felt towards individuals who were in this church. Now bear in mind that Paul had not been with this church. The thing about a city like Lusaka is that a church normally comprises people that have traveled outside the city, mingled with a lot of people out there, and then traveled back into this city where they normally live. And consequently, there is that cross-pollination that enables outsiders to know them individually and them to know people from other cities as well. And so, though the Apostle Paul had not been with this actual congregation, he knew a lot of these individuals who were in this church, literally by name. And so, as he writes this letter, he specifically ends with these expressions of recognition and also goodwill towards them. Let me try and change the picture a little bit and I think you will understand what is happening here. Lusaka is what I call the maker, M-E-C-C-A, of tertiary education. And so we have a lot of individuals who finish high school in all kinds of places across Zambia, who then gravitate into Lusaka for their tertiary education. Three years later, four years later, five years later, perhaps those who are studying medicine six or seven years later, they finish and off they go to other parts of the country, either for attachment or simply to go and work over there. They finished and they go to work. And the point is that while they are working out there, Somebody mentions to them that he's on a very brief attachment. He's making his way to Lusaka to come and work for a week, for two weeks, for three weeks. And then he says, I'm intending to attend Kabata Baptist Church. Now let me tell you what will happen. That person who was once a young person here for three, four, five, six, seven years, who's now working, let's assume it is in Kasama, immediately goes, what? You're going to go back to the opposition? Let me tell you, please don't forget, greet so-and-so, and greet so-and-so, greet so-and-so, and so on. That person will be mentioning names. Now why? Well, there is just that sense of warmth that comes to that person's heart. That when I was in Lusaka, that couple and that person and that family, they attended to me. Many times when I came to the end of term and I had to leave, they came over to campus, I threw things into their car, they threw them into a corner of their house, and off I went onto my holidays. And when I came back, I arrived at their home, they got the things out, and they took me to campus, made sure I was back in my room, and so forth. They were really a family to me until my time of studies were over. Greet them for me. Now, that's the kind of thing that you are finding here. This is not simply greet the church. If that was all, well, Paul would have said it in verse 16. We're not going to need verse 5 to verse 15. What do we see in verse 5 to verse 15? Well, first of all, it is individuals who were affectionately known to Paul. affectionately known to Paul. Let's quickly look at a number of them. Of course, we know about Priscilla and Aquila. We dealt with that last week. But look at verse 5 and the second part. Verse 5 and the second part. He says, great my beloved, apennitus. my beloved Apennitus, who was the first convert to Christ in Asia. Now as you know, Rome was not in Asia. So what obviously happened was when the Apostle Paul and others were introducing Christianity in the Roman province of Asia, Apennitus was the first one to get converted. And so they spent quite some time with him ministering into his life as he was transformed from a pagan to a fruitful Christian. Their lives got intertwined and therefore Paul is able to refer to Apennitus as my beloved, greet him for me. Look at verse 7. greet Adronikos and Junya. My kinsmen and my fellow prisoners, they are well known to the apostles, and they were in Christ before me." Again, there was a personal relationship with them there. My kinsmen obviously suggests that they were related, even though it may have been at great distance. But he adds, and my fellow prisoners. There was a time when Paul was in prison, and they were in prison with him. He remembers that. And so he sends very personal greetings to them. Verse 8, greet Ampliatus. And he says, my beloved in the Lord. My beloved in the Lord. Verse 9, be. First of Voices greet Abanus, our fellow worker in Christ, and my beloved staircase. Verse Greet my kinsman Herodion. Greet those in the Lord who belong to the family of Naxos." So there it's more to do with my kinsman, my relation. And again, as I said, it may be the distance, but it still was. Verse 12, the second part. The Beloved Persis, the Beloved Persis, who has worked hard in the Lord. And then lastly, the second part of verse 13, Gritrophus chosen in the Lord also his mother, who has been a mother to me as well. So what we're learning there is the fact that within the body of Christ we actually develop relationships. We develop friendships as we are mingling in spiritual context and fellowship. And that relationship is one that continues even while we have been apart. And so simply knowing that somebody is in a particular place, that's the reason why we want to send those greetings. It's because they have been affectionate relationships. And that's the example that I gave of the student who spent her years among us, and now studies are over, gone off, as I said, to Northern Province, and then someone there is saying, I'm heading back to Lusaka. You can be sure that the greetings being sent are for those who are affectionately known by this individual. But the second is in terms of individuals who were distinguished by their service. Distinguished by their service. So this is not individuals who are in affectionate relationships as such, although some of them are, as we shall notice. But they are primarily being singled out because of their Some of them length of service, so he keeps referring to in terms of they were saved first earlier than me, but some of them he actually mentions that they worked hard in the Lord. They worked hard in the Lord. Look at verse 5 and the second part. Verse 5 and the second part. We read there, I'll just begin from the beginning, greet also the house, the church in their house. Greet my beloved Appenitus, who was the first convert to Christ in Asia, so that's more to do with length. Verse 6, greet Mary. who has worked hard for you. Now later on, I'll also come and particularly bring out the ladies. So we'll be back to this text in a few minutes. But look at verse 7, the second part. Verse 7, the second part. Yes, they are well known to the apostles, and they were in Christ before me. That's Adronicus and Junior that we mentioned earlier on. Verse 9, greet Abanus, our fellow worker in Christ, and then my beloved Stachys. There we have two of them. First of all, greet those workers in the Lord, triphina and triphosa. Greet the beloved person who has worked hard in the Lord. Again, it's simply showing that these greetings were real. Because if it wasn't for this realism, you can be sure that Paul would have simply said, greet the church, period. But there was a reality there. Paul was able to recall different churches in Asia and Europe where he had labored and certain individuals that he had labored with there who had thrown all their weight into service, some of them going into prison together with him, who have now migrated to Rome. And so he's able to send greetings to them, bearing in mind the kind of service they rendered. Again, the best way to illustrate this is that some of you, this has not been your first church. You got saved in other parts of Zambia, and you became part of the life of those churches. And while you were saving there, maybe you were in Sunday school, or maybe you were in the choir, or maybe you were involved in perhaps ushering, or maybe you're involved in one ministry or the other. And while you were in that church, there were these individuals you were saving together with. And you know how it wasn't simply dragging their feet in order to do something. No. They had heart and soul and mind in the Lord's work. You often prayed together, perhaps even burning the midnight candle together for the Lord's work as you were preparing for some seminar or some workshop, and you were putting in so much together, perhaps even improved some aspect of church life together. And then in due season, that person moved and came to Lusaka, came to Kawata. And then somebody there now is saying, I'm going to Lusaka. That's really what's happening here. You are sending greetings to a person you knew them for their love for the Lord and their love for the Lord's work. It stands out to you that there was a co-laborer with you. Thirdly, it is the women. who were known for their service, the women who were known for their service. The first and obvious one is Phoebe. We already finished on her. The second is Prisca, that is a variant of Priscilla. We also dealt with her last time. And then there are a few more. Verse six says, greet Mary. who has worked hard for you. Now, what is interesting here is it's like sending a greeting to Kabwatha Baptist Church and saying, greet Mary. Well, maybe we don't have too many Marys here, so let's use John. Greet John. In other words, the name Mary was a very common name even in those days. But what distinguished this Mary is what he adds, and it is who has worked hard for you. In other words, the church in Rome would immediately know which Mary is being spoken about because she had distinguished herself in serving this way. Similarly, in verse 12. Greet those workers in the Lord, and who are they? Trifina and Trifosa. Now, most likely, both of these were sisters, were blood sisters. It's the way in which often parents have this tendency when they have twins. You know, this is Mweluwa and Mwenya. I was going to say Joseph and Josephette, but I won't. You know, it's sort of having names that are similar to each other when they are having children. So there's every possibility that these were sisters who became sisters in the Lord. But what is glorious is this, they also became great workers together in the Lord. Greet those workers in the Lord, he says, triphina and triphosa. And even the next, Persis. Greet the beloved Persis. She's a woman. How do you know? Well, thankfully, in the sort of, whether it's Latin or Greek, you can tell the gender of a person being referred to often, even from the ending of a name. Who has worked hard in the Lord? Worked hard in the Lord. And then lastly, it's the mother of Raphus in verse 13. Great Raphus chosen in the Lord, also his mother who has been a mother to me as well. And obviously doesn't mean that she gave him birth. What he means is that she attended to his needs. in terms of hospitality and therefore he remembers her almost as though she was a mother as well. Now why is this important? It's important because You know, often people tend to judge the activities of a church purely by what happens during worship services. And the fact that they are not seeing women coming onto the stage, they almost feel as though women do nothing in the context of a church. But that's a major disaster. Because you don't judge a church by one and a half hours a week. You can't do that. The life of a church actually is seven days a week through a lot of its ministries, a lot of discipleship work, a lot of evangelistic work, a lot of hospitality work that is taking place in the background, a lot of it. And it's there. Trust me, that issues of gender hardly ever cross people's minds. Because both men and women are able to pour their lives into the lives of unbelievers, into the lives of young Christians in terms of building them up. They are able to pour their lives into Christian ministry where they are working together in order to bring the world to its knees before the Lord Jesus Christ. I've never forgotten once being challenged by a visitor here that it seems that in your church it's only men who work, and thankfully it was at the door. And my answer was, just pull any of these women that are on that veranda, just pull any one of them, and ask the question, what are you doing in this church? And I said, most likely they will tell you, a lot, a lot. You don't judge a church by what's happening. In fact, I mean, there's a little more of sort of female involvement in public life now than there was at the time this passage was being written. It was a very male chauvinistic society in those days. And yet look at what Paul is saying. There were women here who were known for their service that he is able to remember. I was once a student at UNSA for five years, and we used to go to the Sacred Baptist Church. I had my mothers in that church, I want to assure you on that. Up to now, I still think back to those days and thank God for them. for the way in which they literally turned me into a child in their home when I wasn't even really related to them. The way in which they spoke into my life, even about male-female relationship issues. They spoke into my life. And consequently, I would confide in them when wrestling with these particular issues. And again, it's so much in terms of Christian service. I mean, I remember one of them, she was the church librarian. And I was looking for a book from the church library over one weekend, and I kept following her around in the car park and trying to get attention from her. She was getting married the following weekend. So she posed and said, Conrad, Conrad, Conrad, look at me, look at me. So I looked at her and she says, I'm getting married this weekend, okay? It said everything to me, that yeah, I think this weekend I better spare her of her library efforts. But I still remember, this is 40 years later, her dedication to the church library. Her dedication to the church library. She's now a pastor's wife out in Canada. So you have a number of women as well. Let me quickly deal with the last one here. And it was those who were in the outer circle, those who are not even mentioned by name. And why is that? It is because they were only associated to Paul through others. They were only associated to Paul through others. And it's simply because, well, they're there. And an obvious one, look at verse 5, we're beginning. Verse 5, the first part, greet also the church in their house. So it's by association with the house of Prisca and Aquila. Verse 10, the second part. Verse 10, the second part. Greet Apellas, who is approved in Christ. Greet those who belong to the family of Aristobulus. Belong to the family of Aristobulus. So Aristobulus would have been the person who stood out, but they were those who were part of his household. And they get the greetings, too. Verse 14. Asynchritus, Phlegon, Hemos, Petrobus, Hemos, and the brothers who are with them. And finally, verse 15. Greet Philogos, Julia, Nereus, and his sister, and Olympus, and then there it is again, and all the saints who are with them. So, again, it's fairly clear there that to the Apostle Paul there was that final category, the any others, those who are there but do not distinguish themselves by deliberately entering into relationships. They're quite willing to remain simply part of the crowd. They don't distinguish themselves by actual Christian service, but they're somehow still somewhere in the crowd. And then as we rush on to the conclusion, it's simply the fact that the Apostle Paul makes this issue of greeting a Christian duty. The very last verse, greet one another with a holy kiss. Now, the holy kiss aspect I've already dealt with in another session. It was a form of greeting, a form of affectionate greeting. It's still there to a large extent in the sort of Middle Eastern culture. It's still there, but nonetheless, the emphasis is greet one another. Why should the Apostle Paul make such a big issue of this? Well, let's go back in conclusion to what we said earlier about the greeting. It's a formal expression of recognition and goodwill to other people. It only makes sense that those of us who are Christians are deliberate about that, about recognizing the Lord in each other's lives, and hence giving such individuals that sense of goodwill. It gives us a sense of belonging to one another. It really does. because we are social creatures. So let's make sure that whatever this means in our own context and culture, that we deliberately do something about that. that we are individuals that are recognizing one another individually, and that because of these various aspects that I have already brought out. And then putting it a little differently, it's this. If there's somebody in the church that you deliberately don't greet, you are sinning against the Lord in the sense that you are depriving this person of the actual recognition that they ought to have because of what Christ has done in you and also in them. And also you are depriving them of that wish, that wholesome wish that says, may you be blessed of God with His peace, with His joy, with His grace, with a good morning, with a good afternoon, with a good evening, with a good day, or whatever else it might be. So let's be deliberate there. Because it's fairly easy for us to be deliberate with withdrawing the greeting from one another. And remember, this was a kind of inter-church. It was a Christian ecclesiastical greeting. And therefore, especially when we have inter-church relations and we've got individuals that are crossing, going to another church or going to a family that we know, let's be those who give that recognition on the other side and a sense of goodwill. Let it be that individuals who would come, for instance, to visit should see that there is a warmth here. There is a feel of family here, that there is a real connectedness, there is a real love, there is real fellowship here, even from the warmth that is being conveyed as we are greeting one another. They will clearly see that this is not an office relationship. No, a thousand times no. These people have become family. They've got a lot to do with each other. And so we must be deliberate in giving greetings one to the other. After all, as we've been singing, we are heirs of the father. We are family. We are one. Let's pray. Our Father in heaven, thank you for the sidelight that you show us into the New Testament church, that here is one of the most outstanding doctrinal pieces of literature. And yet at the same time, breathing with the atmosphere of Christian fellowship, inter-church Christian fellowship, because God's people are ever on the move. We get to know one another through providence. Our lives get interconnected, and they get interconnected for life. O Father, help us to love one another even through this cultural gesture of greeting, greeting, greeting, that the world may see what you have done among us through Jesus Christ. Amen.